Jitwam - HONEYCOMB
Jitwam. presents HONEYCOMB: A psychedelic journey through the inner beyond on Tartelet Records.
With his roots in Assam, northeast India, and his hustle now based in Brooklyn, the psychedelic soul-savant known as jitwam. will officially drop his second albumon the Copenhagen-based label Tartelet Records in April 2019. To mark its release, a music video to the album’s opener “busstop” was shot in the exhilarating city of Mumbai across three days.
HONEYCOMB hits the sweet spot between jitwam’s work in dance music and efforts as a bandleader, connecting people in-studio and on-stage. The record encapsulates his diverse upbringing in India and Australia, before living in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and finally the US, where he currently resides.
“Of nowhere and everywhere, I have no musical heritage,” jitwam. says.
On jitwam’s journey, he’s worn several musical faces that all highlight soulful sounds within the world of psychedelic indie rock, the hip-hop realm, and underground house music. His fluidity as an artist has earned him a place in the rich lineage of Indian composers, fusing disparate styles and ideas into a world that is truly and uniquely his own.
These sounds and musical identities are apparent in his 12-track album of broken microphone blues, heartfelt vocals, and smooth assorted instrumentation. It follows jitwam’s well-received EPs on his own imprint, The Jazz Diaries, which secured him a spot on Moodymann’s DJ Kicks compilation, as well as a steady string of gigs that took his talents from a country-wide NTS-Radio tour in India, to shows in Europe and the US, where he opened for legendary jazz-funk artist Roy Ayers.
HONEYCOMB was recorded at the Steam Room Sessions studio in London, where Natureboy Flako lent his special touch to jitwam’s tracks across some intimate collaborative sessions. We’re left with sonic “diary entries” that put a magnifying glass on life’s mundane moments, turning them into inspired tales of life, love, sadness, and periods of ecstatic release. They trace jitwam’s curious – and at times, downright weird – path through the years.
“I’ve always had an affinity for artists that stretch their wings – Jimi Hendrix, Jay Dilla, Moodymann, RD Burman, Bjork… These artists have been able to create a universe that is truly their own, and this is something that I strive for within my own music. HONEYCOMB is a universe where rock ‘n’ roll meets soul, where the blues sing techno, and jazz can be anything you want it to be...” jitwam explains.
Album opener “busstop” finds him welcoming you into his world with warm guitar riffs, smooth basslines, and lyrics about the comforting chaos of urban life in India. Features are aplenty on the LP too: London artist Marie Bashiru adds croons to the buttery “diamonds” and “temptations”; trumpet is worked in by Henry Wu-collaborator Nick Walton; and frequent Brooklyn-based collaborator Aquiles Navarro features on the lullaby jam “hearts don’t lie.”
LP & Digi // Out May 2019 on Tartelet Records
